


keep your secrets between the sheets

by growlery



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Cuddling, Gen, M/M, Self-Indulgent, pre-depositions, sleeping together but not sleeping together, so much cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Chris and Dustin shared a bed at Harvard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep your secrets between the sheets

**Author's Note:**

> For cottoncandy_bingo (non-sexual sleeping together). It was supposed to be five, but I nixed the fifth one because the tone changed and it was kind of too wistful for a fluff challenge fill. Thanks to constantlyinconstant for the reassurance ♥

**i.**

Chris comes out to his suitemates a few months into the year, when he’s pretty sure they’re not assholes – or, well, not assholes like _that_. (They’re all sort of dickish, especially Mark, but Chris is kind of grudgingly fond of them anyway.)

And he hasn’t exactly made a secret of it, but he figures it must still be kind of a surprise when he comes back from class one day to find the three of them miraculously all in the same room at the same time and just blurts out, “I’m gay.”

Probably he could have segued into it more smoothly than that. Probably. 

Mark doesn’t even turn away from his laptop long enough to say, “Congratulations,” and Billy deadpans, “That is brand new information.”

Dustin, though, Dustin just sort of blinks at him and says, “Huh. Really?”

“Really really,” Chris says, steeling himself. “I am one hundred per cent into dudes and if that bothers you then you should probably say so now. I think they can still find you a new roommate.”

And he _knew_ Dustin wouldn’t care but it’s still more of a relief than he’s willing to admit when Dustin blinks at him again and says, “Uh, no, that really won’t be necessary,” before turning to Mark and saying, “ _You_ knew? How could you know when I didn’t? How come, Mark, it breaks at least three rules of sense-making-ness.”

“I notice things,” Mark says loftily, which is a complete and total lie, he doesn’t notice anything except- “Things I think are important, anyway.”

Chris flushes and says, “Good to know,” before beating a hasty retreat to his room, muttering something about the essay he has to finish for his lit class. And he’s not _hiding_ , not exactly, he really does have an essay to do, but it’s not due in for another week and a half and even Chris doesn’t usually get things done that quickly. 

But he’s not hiding, he isn’t, even though he stays in his room all evening and has an early night because, well, he’s been meaning to catch up on sleep recently. That’s all. 

That sleep is interrupted sometime later, however, by someone prodding him repeatedly in the chest. Chris groans. 

“Chris?” Dustin hisses, his voice much closer to Chris’s ear than it really has any right to be. “Chris, hey, Christopher! Are you awake?”

Chris makes another vague groaning noise that he hopes Dustin understands to mean _I am now, asshole, what the fuck do you want_. Dustin makes a happy noise in response, which either means he didn’t or he’s a dick who delights in causing Chris pain, and throws off the covers. Chris whimpers kind of pathetically but he doesn’t really care because, fuck, _cold_.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dustin mutters, chastened, and Chris suddenly isn’t cold at all because he has a Dustin attached to him, warm all along his side. 

Chris stiffens. “What are you doing?” he asks, very slowly. 

“I... thought that would be obvious?”

“Well, yeah, but.” Chris is really not awake enough for this. “ _Why_ are you doing it?”

“I’m making a point,” Dustin says firmly. “I’m not not going to cuddle you just because you’re gay, dude, that’s a stupid reason to cuddleblock yourself.”

“Okay,” Chris says, because the last person he came out to punched him in the face and this really isn’t that. He’s not really sure what it is, but he thinks he probably should have expected it. Dustin is one of the most tactile people Chris has ever met, which, when the other person he has to deal with on a daily basis is Mark Zuckerberg, is actually kind of nice, on balance. 

(Even though, really, if Dustin just wanted cuddles or, whatever, to prove a point, he could do that any time. He doesn’t have to sneak into Chris’s bed in the middle of the night to do it. Chris doesn’t particularly want to point that out, though. Dustin’s a pretty great cuddler, at any time of day or night.)

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, you know,” Dustin says, after a while. “I am one hundred per cent okay with you being one hundred per cent into dudes.”

“Okay,” Chris says, after a minute. “Good to know.”

“I just thought I should clarify,” Dustin says, “in case you were worried.”

“I wasn’t,” Chris says, because it’s true, mostly, but, “Thanks. Y’know.”

“What, for being a decent person?” Chris thinks he can _hear_ Dustin rolling his eyes. “Sure. Any time.”

He cuddles in close before Chris can say anything else, wrapping both his arms around Chris’s waist and nestling his head between Chris’s neck and shoulder. Chris waits for a minute, two, but when it becomes clear that Dustin has no intention of moving any time soon he just sighs, closes his eyes and cuddles Dustin back. 

**ii.**

It becomes a thing that they do. Not all the time, but sometimes, when they watch movies into the early hours of the morning or stumble in from parties mostly wasted or just don’t feel like separating long enough to find their own beds, they’ll fall asleep together. It’s _not_ like that, no matter how many times Eduardo waggles his eyebrows at them when they surface from the same room the morning after. 

(Like Eduardo’s eyebrows have any right to imply things with the way he is with Mark, seriously. Chris’s eyebrows would never lie flat if he called out everything Eduardo does, every time Eduardo manages to get Mark to eat or sleep when nothing any of the rest of them tries works, every time Eduardo’s eyes light up when Mark says something smart, or when Mark says something unexpectedly, carelessly sweet, or when Mark does anything, really. Eduardo’s going to get his heart broken, Chris knows, but he doesn’t know how to tell Eduardo that.)

It just- it just really isn’t like that. Chris put Dustin very firmly in the friend box the first time Dustin wandered out of his room wearing only his boxers and one of Chris’s shirts he thought had got lost in the wash. They’re just friends, _good_ friends, good friends who cuddle a lot and occasionally sleep in the same bed. It’s a thing, but it isn’t a _thing_ , and people who are not Eduardo and his stupid eyebrows have mostly got used to it by now. 

And then their heating breaks. 

They call college support, but they say it’s too late at night, they won’t be able to do anything about it until the next day. Mark mutters something disparaging about the incompetent idiots who work at Harvard – he’s still kind of bitter about the Facemash thing – and Eduardo places a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

“You can stay at mine tonight, if you want,” Eduardo offers. “My roommate’s staying with his girlfriend for the week, I have a free bed.”

Dustin and Chris turn to look at each other at the same time because _really_ , but Mark just shrugs and says, “Sure, okay, let me just get my stuff.”

“Betrayer,” Dustin hollers after his retreating back. “You would abandon your friends in the face of mortal peril, Mark?”

Mark just flips him off, and Eduardo says, “Sorry, guys,” in that earnest, Eduardo-y way he has that means none of them can be mad at him for too long. “You could sleep on the floor, I guess, but it probably wouldn’t be much better than if you stayed here.”

“It’s fine,” Dustin says, with great dignity, “Chris and I will be _fine_ on our own, no need to worry yourselves. We’ll weather the mortal peril somehow.”

Eduardo winks at them, says, “Have fun,” and disappears out of the doorway. Chris has to laugh. 

After a moment, Dustin says, “Do you think he realises-”

“No,” Chris says, still giggling, “I really don’t think he does. It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”

“So sad,” Dustin agrees, but he’s grinning. 

They end up in Dustin’s bed because it’s closer, mostly, and they’re both shivering kind of a lot by this point. Dustin pulls on two hoodies over the one he’s already wearing and offers Chris some so he doesn’t have to go to his own room to get one. 

“Really,” Dustin says, when they’ve dived under the covers and are huddled together so close it’s like they’re actually trying to absorb themselves into each other, “really we should be naked right now.”

Chris just looks at him. 

“Not like _that_ ,” Dustin says, rolling his eyes, “just, y’know, body heat. It’s more effective when you’re naked, apparently.”

“I’m not getting naked with you,” Chris says, slowly, so there can be no mistaking his meaning. “Just- no, Dustin. _No_.”

Grinning, Dustin leans up and licks his nose, because- because Dustin is weird and ridiculous and Chris has no idea why they’re friends. At all. 

Chris tells him this, very sincerely, and Dustin’s grin only widens. “Whatever,” he says, “you know you love me,” and the thing is, Chris really kind of does. 

Chris smacks his shoulder and says, “Go the fuck to sleep, asshole,” but he lets Dustin cuddle in closer anyway. 

That’s how Mark finds them the next morning, Dustin spooned up behind Chris, an arm thrown over his waist. Mark raises a very deliberate eyebrow. 

“Shut up,” Chris says, wriggling out of Dustin’s grip. Dustin makes a soft noise, but doesn’t stir, even when Chris sits up and the covers shift around him. “Just because I’m gay and he’s-”

“I know,” Mark says, sounding insulted, and Chris almost relaxes, almost, except, “I know it isn’t that,” Mark continues. “I do notice things, y’know.”

“You really don’t,” Chris says tiredly, rubbing at his face like that’ll rub Eduardo’s stupid face out of his mind. “What did you want, anyway?”

“They need you out before they can fix the heating,” Mark says. “Eduardo says we can hang out in his room until they’re done.”

“Okay,” Chris says. He sighs heavily. “Okay, yeah, we’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Mark doesn’t leave, though. He lingers by the side of Dustin’s bed like he’s going to say something, and Chris braces himself. 

“I do notice things,” Mark repeats, but the words come more slowly this time, stilted. “Eduardo, I-” He licks his lips. “I notice.”

Chris just sort of stares at him for a few moments. “Okay,” he says finally, because what the fuck _else_ is he supposed to say. 

Mark nods once, jerkily, and then leaves. Chris lies back down, and wonders if he’ll ever stop hearing Mark’s voice in his head. _I notice_. 

Well, fuck. 

**iii.**

Chris wakes up and his head is pounding with the mother of all headaches, he can’t breathe through his nose, it feels like something died in his throat and he’s shivering all over despite being huddled under about six million blankets. 

_Fuck_ , he thinks, viciously, _fuck fuck **fuck**_. He hates being sick, hates how it makes him weak and defenceless and dependent on people who aren’t himself. 

Groaning, he rolls out of bed and stumbles out to the bathroom, rubbing furiously at the goosebumps on his arms. He feels light-headed and sort of like he might collapse at any moment, but he figures if he can just wash his face and pump himself with all the cold medicine he can lay his hands on, he’ll be okay for class. 

When he stumbles back in, though, Dustin takes one look at him and announces, “Bed. Now. Don’t argue, Chris.”

“But-”

“Don’t argue,” Dustin repeats, steering him back to his room by the elbow. “If you leave this room you might actually keel over and die and I’m too fond of you to let that happen.”

Chris opens his mouth to protest again and Dustin actually covers his mouth with his hand, what the fuck, who even _does_ that. 

“Go back to bed, Chris,” Dustin says, uncharacteristically gentle. “You look worse than Mark after a week-long coding binge.” He squints at him. “You look kind of like you want to die, honestly.”

Chris mumbles something vaguely affirmative against Dustin’s palm and Dustin grins, says, “I thought so! C’mon.”

He pulls up the covers of Chris’s bed and all but shoves Chris under them, tucking him in right up to his chin like Chris is five years old. 

“Why didn’t _you_ get sick,” Chris says, and, okay, maybe he kind of is five years old right now. “You were in the ice box of doom a few weeks ago the same as I was.”

Dustin flashes him a grin, says, “I have the immune system of an ox, okay,” and Chris can’t help but laugh even though it scratches at his throat and prompts a coughing fit that makes Dustin make worried faces at him. It’s like they’ve switched places, god, Chris _hates_ this. 

“I’m going to get you some OJ and cough medicine,” Dustin says, biting his lip. “Don’t die before I get back, okay?”

“I’ll do my very best,” Chris tries to retort, but the effect is kind of mangled by the way he starts coughing again halfway through. 

Dustin’s brows knit together and he reaches out a hand a hand to Chris’s forehead. “Shit, Chris,” he says, “you’re like a fucking furnace.”

Chris makes an entirely involuntary sighing noise; Dustin’s hand is cool and soft and so, so soothing on his skin. 

“Make that OJ, cough medicine and a cold compress,” Dustin mutters, looking even more worried than before. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Chris says, “seriously, Dustin, I’ll be fine. I can look after myself.”

“Of course you can,” Dustin says, “I do know you, y’know. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Let me take care of you for a change, okay?”

He disappears out of the room before Chris can say anything else. Chris might pass out while Dustin is gone, he isn't entirely sure, he just knows that the next thing he’s aware of is Dustin returning, laden with medical supplies and two whole cartons of orange juice. Which turns out to be a genius idea, since Chris drinks about half of the first carton in one go after Dustin forces the god-awful cough syrup down his throat, then a few more gulps to wash the painkillers down. 

When Chris is dosed up to Dustin’s satisfaction, Dustin places a cool, damp cloth on his forehead and smoothes it down, his fingers lingering at Chris’s temples and, okay, Chris can admit that it is kind of nice to have someone looking after him.

And then Dustin climbs in next to him. 

“You have class today,” Chris says, kind of stupidly, but he’s sick and tired and may have possibly had too many painkillers to be properly coherent. 

“No I don’t,” Dustin says, which is a _lie_ , Chris knows it’s a lie, or at least he’s pretty sure it’s a lie. He thinks Dustin’s supposed to be in French 245, but maybe that’s actually tomorrow. And a different class. Chris’s brain is kind of fuzzy right now. 

“You’ll get sick,” he tries instead, and Dustin rolls his eyes. 

“No I won’t,” he says, “immune system of an ox, remember? Stop trying to make me go away.”

“But-”

Dustin snuggles up behind him, hooking his chin over Chris’s shoulder and hanging on, and Chris really doesn’t have the energy to argue with him right now, much less fight off a stubborn Dustin intent on cuddles. He heaves an almighty sigh instead and closes his eyes, relaxing back into Dustin’s chest. 

**iv.**

Dustin’s girlfriend breaks up with him six weeks after he finally convinces her to go out with him, and Chris likes Stephanie, he really really does, she’s generally lovely and clever and always has thoughtful things to say in class, but the look on Dustin’s face when he tells him makes Chris want to _hurt_ her. Dustin should never look like this, his face crumpled in on itself and his eyes bloodshot from tears and booze. Dustin should never look _defeated_. 

Chris hugs him, briefly but tightly, and doesn’t stop him when he reaches for another bottle of vodka. Mark broke away from coding long enough earlier to make what were probably supposed to be sympathetic faces and tell Dustin he could handle coding for thefacebook for the rest of the evening. Chris had to stop himself rolling his eyes because it was such a _Mark_ thing to say, but it means a lot that he said it, Chris knows that. 

They marathon the Back to the Future movies, Dustin curled into Chris’s side, Chris carding his hands through Dustin’s hair. Dustin keeps drinking, but he doesn’t get giggly and handsy – well, handsi _er_ – he just gets quieter, moving steadily closer to Chris until he’s basically sitting in his lap. Chris just keeps petting him, keeps being a strong, reassuring presence, and hopes that it’s enough. 

Dustin is mostly asleep by the end of the third movie. He’s also very, very drunk, and probably Chris should’ve stopped him sometime between the Doc taking Marty and Jennifer to 2015 and Marty ending up in the alternate 1985. Sighing, he grabs Dustin, one arm around his shoulders, one arm around his waist, and pulls him to his feet, steadying him when he stumbles into Chris’s side. 

“Easy,” Chris murmurs. “Come on, let’s get you into bed.”

“You can get me into bed any time you like,” Dustin says, but his tone falls just flat of joking. Chris tightens his grip on him and doesn’t say anything. 

He helps Dustin into his room, gently depositing him on the bed to pull his shirt off his head and undo the zipper on his pants. 

“You tryin’ t’have your wicked way with me, Christopher?” Dustin mumbles, crooking a smile at him. 

“Yes,” Chris says flatly, “that is exactly what I’m going to do when you’re drunk and broken-hearted. Jesus, Dustin.”

“’m kidding,” he protests, and Chris _knows_ that, but then, “You’re too good for me, anyway,” Dustin says, very quietly, and Chris goes momentarily still and then pretends he hasn’t heard. 

“I’m going to get you some water,” he says gently. “Don’t pass out before I get back, okay?”

Dustin makes a vague noise Chris takes as assent and Chris nods, heading out of the room to fill a glass. Dustin’s crawled under the blankets when Chris gets back, and the way he’s positioned it looks like he’s curled up, curled into himself. Chris sighs. 

“Here,” he says, perching on the edge of the bed. “Drink this. Your head will thank me in the morning.”

Dustin takes the glass but doesn’t lift his head so Chris slips a hand under his neck and tilts his head up so the water doesn’t go everywhere when he drinks. 

“Thanks,” Dustin says when he’s done, and Chris smiles kind of awkwardly at him. 

“No problem,” he says, because it’s not like he hasn’t done this a hundred times before. “I should-”

Dustin mumbles something that sounds like, “Don’t,” and grabs at Chris’s shirt, tugging ‘til Chris falls down next to him on the bed. “I don’ wanna be alone. Y’know.”

“Okay,” Chris says, because he does know. “Can I at least take my pants off first, though?”

Dustin doesn’t even make the obvious joke this time, he just nods and rolls away so he’s not facing Chris when he strips off. Chris gets under the covers after, because that seems like it’d be marginally less weird – and considerably less cold – than the alternative. 

Dustin rolls back towards him and blinks. “Your shirt’s gonna get crinkly,” he says, and Chris sighs.

“It’s okay, Dustin,” he assures him, “really, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Dustin says, and snuggles in closer, into Chris’s side. And they’ve done this hundreds of times but it still surprises Chris, how Dustin doesn’t so much cuddle as latch onto you and get comfortable, his grip never uncomfortable even at its tightest. “G’night.”

“’night,” Chris whispers back, but Dustin’s already asleep. 


End file.
